Sci-Fi Watch: Project Hail Mary (2026)

Watched:  03/21/2026

Format:  Regal

Viewing:  First

Director:  Phil Lord & Christopher Miller

Not so long ago, we read the novel of Project Hail Mary, which we discussed here at the ol' interweb log.

I enjoyed the book a great deal - just as I'd enjoyed Weir's first book, The Martian.  And like that book, it received the big screen treatment, which I thoroughly enjoyed and have rewatched in part and in whole.

First:  Go see this in the theater.  It will be fine on your TV or laptop, it is - however - a movie designed for the big screen and benefits from the image size and quality, plus the audio experience.  And maybe even the audience reaction.

Like the novel, the book is told in the present as an amnesiac awakens in a spacecraft with the other two crewmates deceased and, as he discovers, light years from Earth as the craft he's in approaches a nearby star.  Grace recovers his memories in flashbacks that fill in the gaps for himself and the viewer as he progresses, eventually realizing things about himself.

The impetus for the trip is that the sun has seen something called The Petrova Line form between Earth and Venus, and something about that effect means the sun is starting to dim - the predictable effects meaning Earth will become a frozen wasteland within 3 decades.  The star he's heading toward is not fading, and Earth needs to know why.

Ryan Gosling stars as Ryland Grace, and it's a really solid fit.  He's essentially acting either alone or against a puppet for the majority of the film's runtime.  The past is shown on Earth as Grace is recruited into Project Hail Mary as a researcher.

The big surprise, of course, is that he meets a completely alien being - one seemingly made of stone - who is at the same star on the same mission.  The two sort out a communication system, find the ying to their yang, and face challenges together.  It is, in effect, a sci-fi buddy comedy.

It's popular to comment on how books and movies have different needs, and I think that's a fair and true statement.*  Andy Weir has written two books that I've read, Project Hail Mary being the second - and I think it's fair to say that his books are like fun science puzzles with a fiction-suit hero, someone with so few defining characteristics and enough witty dialog, anyone can imagine themselves in Our Hero's place.  The two novels are a great, breezy read that keeps the blood pumping with life and death stakes, accidents aplenty, and a hero really earning their conclusion.  I do think Project Hail Mary looked for more complex and more diverse emotions than The Martian and showed some interesting growth for Weir.

Movies, however, are more about the emotional development of story and characters - they don't really have time to work through complex science puzzles or stop for a lecture on physics, biology, time dilation, etc... without losing the masses.  You *can* do it in small bits - see Mr. DNA in Jurassic Park, but we generally worry more about the action and consequences of the action.  And the emotional beats associated.

And this could be, really, a master class in the separation of the two mediums - both accomplishing their goals with high marks.  

I did mention in my post on the book that I felt there was some human element missing to Grace (which one of you was quite cross and oddly political about in the comments) - but here I think they filled in that gap both through minor exposition, through his connection with Eva Stratt (Sandra Hüller) getting a bit of a pivot, and some minor chatter added into the movie.  

Screenwriter (at least credited) Drew Goddard manages to mine the book for the emotional beats that *are* there, but I don't think that's Weir's foremost concern.  Weir does write Ryland Grace as someone who feels a bit like an everyman with enough of a sense of humor to keep the show going, but I think the coordinated talents of star Ryan Gosling, Goddard and directors Lord & Miller humanizes the experience in ways other than "this is space travel and science, and these characters are funny sometimes".  

What the movie takes from the book and isn't changed all that much is his relationship with Rocky.  Sure, things are accelerated, but skipping over learning a whole language back and forth is exactly the kind of stuff you streamline for a movie.  They manage to get right to the core of how the two characters reflect one another and give each other something they each need sorely - not just a puzzle fit intellectually, but in how they connect with another person.  

Who knew the solution to the male loneliness epidemic was to fly 4.8 lights years away and talk to a rock?

There's some real beauty in the movie - both in the approach to the space scenes (that shot of Adrian... holy christ) and in the buddyship that grows between Grace and Rocky.  Lord & Miller also are canny enough to understand that maybe the work Stratt was doing and Weir's take maybe could use some juice.  We don't have time for all of the interpersonal stuff with the astronauts (a bummer as Mila Vayntrub is in the cast but has few lines) but we do get a more human Stratt than in the novel with her own cathartic moments.  I won't spoil.  But you may familiarize yourself with Harry Styles' "Sign of the Times" now in prep.

I am curious about more behind the scenes stuff regarding how this was made.  I'm sure it's fascinating.  I don't really have an opinion on this other than that the visuals work, are highly effective, and serve the story beautifully - from looking out the cupola window to Rocky himself.

This is probably the hardest sci-fi we're going to get in 2026, and it's fantastic it's such a watchable, entertaining, moving movie.  You can have both!  I loved The Martian as book and film, and I'm delighted to say if I liked the book of Project Hail Mary more, so, too, the movie.  

We went to the local Regal Cinema before 12:00 to see this, and it was *very* clear in our sparsely attended show, folks who were there were fans of the book or all in on seeing this movie.  In the lobby, they had three separate options for popcorn buckets, including a helmet and Rocky's rolling orb.  So I guess this is the major release I thought it was - only bigger.

  

*I will comment that, curiously what I see as a lot of writing advice online for novelists seems to be writing a book that is digestible in much the same way as a film.  That is never, ever, ever how the writing advice is phrased - and I don't think that's even consciously what the advisors are thinking.  But we're pretty far from what can and should be the more experimental world of prose when it comes to writing advice, and much more of the rules of screenwriting I knew in the 1990s.  (also, 90% of the writing advice is about YA fantasy one way or another)